I dunno, I just read it as a guy of faith posting on Facebook in 2010 about faith and impact. I don’t interpret it with the same slant, I guess.
If he had said “you can’t tell me you love your neighbors unless you vote to raise taxes to feed every hungry person in this country” then I’d interpret the intention differently.
He’s not saying anything Jesus didn’t say in the sermon on the mount. He’s not assigning it any different context, as far as I can tell.
I 100% agree, however in a recent conversation with a group of friends, the Christians in the group all took as absolute fact the only way to heaven was through a belief in the Christian God and everything came down to following the path the Bible lays out that gets you into heaven.
I don’t see that he is trying to silence people. He just wants people to act in accordance with their professed belief and then he will listen to them.
I don’t feel this way. I do have criteria, but it’s not pie-high. I want people to have an ordinary level of loving-- charity, honesty, family, friendship, community, faith. A bit above average, but way below Jesus.
I feel like people are hypocrites when the preach about goodness without being good, in an ordinary way. Nevermind perfect or great. Just good.
Yep. Its a good quote.
Not all Christians agree with each other, shocking but true 
. Not surprised that a self-associating group agree with each other though.
I think a lot of responses in this thread aren’t reading this carefully. How twig hears/reads this is based on her experiences, and that doesn’t mean that if we get a different emphasis or point any of us are wrong. It’s how we hear it, and how we carry the discussion forward.
I don’t think its that at all.
She just made an impulsive conclusion, and it then mushroomed from there as the logical people piled
on.
This is really not a difficult passage to understand.
There is no ninth-dimensional anti-religious understanding going on there.
Anyway, sorry to Twig for being buried here. I don’t mean to pile on, just want to share my opinion that just so happens to be similar to everyone else. Lol.
Same here.
As a naive Canadian I just assumed the Booker quote I posted was inoffensive but still relevant.
I don’t think anyone else here interpreted it this way. I just think he’s calling out people for their hypocrisy. I hope that everyone could aspire to do better in that regard, whether they are religious or not. I don’t think he’s trying to silence anyone, he’s just describing his view of what a better world looks like.
I’ve spent my entire life being judged and preached at by religious folks through media and irl. It’s all nonsense to me and I can mostly just ignore it, but it can be exhausting. This Booker statement is one of the few examples of a positive message from a Christian that I have seen, and it’s funny to me that you can deliberately twist it so that you can project your outrage onto it. I’m sorry it offends you.
And Jesus said, let there be tax cuts for the wealthy.
Render unto Caesar… unless you are rich, then you can render less.
This. I think religious people are called our more because by definition espouse a standard.
But it applies the same to preachy atheists, which are many.
True, but also many religious people also expect others to abide by their beliefs (and attempt to legislate said beliefs), so it’s not unexpected that they would be called out for not abiding by those same beliefs themselves.
I also think… (sorry I can’t shut up lol) that you went looking for subtext because the text doesn’t apply to you. But you should know that the text does apply to lots of people. This quote isn’t directed towards you. It is directed toward them.
She’s just waiting for the next liberal to protest the national anthem to express her patriotism.
Your experience of Christians is extremely different from mine then. Many of my closest friends and relatives and some of the kindest and smartest people I know are right wing pro life Republicans and they are each the exact polar opposite of what you describe.
And I’m tired of watching them getting constantly 
on.
Do they talk but not walk?
If so, they can be nice as all get-out, but Cory won’t listen to their bullshit, as that is his right.
Are you implying that Cory must listen to their bullshit?
